The Ruined Cottage

1. Social and Political Context: The Famine of 1794-95 and the decline of hand-loom weaving industry.

2. The Literary Tradition of Elegy 

3. Passages from  "The Ruined Cottage"

1.  Wordsworth's own elegy

The old Man said, "I see around me here

Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend,

Nor we alone, but that which each man loved

And prized in his peculiar nook of earth

Dies with him or is changed, and very soon

Even of the good is no memorial left.

The Poets in their elegies and songs

Lamenting the departed call the groves,

They call upon the hills and streams to mourn,

And senseless rocks, nor idly; for they speak

In these their invocations with a voice

Obedient to the strong creative power

Of human passion. Sympathies there are

More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,

That steal upon the meditative mind

And grow with thought. 

(ll. 67-82)

2.  The moral purpose of poetic mourning: "A power to virtue friendly"

"It were a wantonness and would demand

Severe reproof, if we were men whose hearts

Could hold vain dalliance with the misery

Even of the dead, contented thence to draw

A momentary pleasure never marked

By reason, barren of all future good.

But we have known that there is often found

In mournful thoughts, and always might be found,

A power to virtue friendly; were't not so,

I am a dreamer among men, indeed

An idle dreamer. 'Tis a common tale,

By moving accidents uncharactered,

A tale of silent suffering, hardly clothed

In bodily form, and to the grosser sense

But ill adapted, scarcely palpable

To him who does not think.

(ll. 221-236)

3. Wordsworth's moral conclusion: a poetic education

"My Friend, enough to sorrow have you given,

The purposes of wisdom ask no more;

Be wise and chearful, and no longer read

The forms of things with an unworthy eye.

She sleeps in the calm earth, and peace is here.

I well remember that those very plumes,

Those weeds, and the high spear-grass on that wall,

By mist and silent rain-drops silver'd o'er,

As once I passed did to my heart convey

So still an image of tranquillity,

So calm and still, and looked so beautiful

Amid the uneasy thoughts which filled my mind,

That what we feel of sorrow and despair

From ruin and from change, and all the grief

The passing shews of being leave behind,

Appeared an idle dream that could not live

Where meditation was. I turned away

And walked along my road in happiness."

He ceased. By this the sun declining shot

A slant and mellow radiance which began

To fall upon us where beneath the trees

We sate on that low bench, and now we felt,

Admonished thus, the sweet hour coming on.

A linnet warbled from those lofty elms,

A thrush sang loud, and other melodies,

At distance heard, peopled the milder air.

The old man rose and hoisted up his load.

Together casting then a farewell look

Upon those silent walls, we left the shade

And ere the stars were visible attained

A rustic inn, our evening resting-place.

(ll. 508-538)

British Library Article on The Ruined Cottage